The Currency Called Time

Some thoughts & ramblings on being creative, being a mother, and making time for both.

I’ve been thinking about the concept of time lately. We tend to view it in our society as a linear expression, but I don’t agree with that in the slightest. Staring at my baby while she sleeps can feel like hours when only a minute or two has passed. Going to pick up dinner after a hectic day can feel like getting from A to Z in 2 seconds when I’ve been driving for 20 minutes. Our concept of time is so abstract and can shift or change based on the day, the season we’re in, or the particular experience we’re going through.

A lot of what I write about these days centers around motherhood because that’s my current lived experience. Some days it feels like we’ve gotten to dinner without blinking and others it feels like her midday nap should be bedtime. But I’ve learned something about myself since having a child, and it’s actually brought me back to what I’d forgotten about when I was a kid.

I think we’re taught that everything takes a lot of time, and while yes that is completely valid and true, I’ve had to condense my personal time into two hours a day while my daughter naps. Do you know the number of things a person can get done in two hours a day? I used to think that was no time at all, but now it feels like an eternity. My rule is that I don’t do anything around the house during this time, and I don’t do anything I can do while she’s awake. A lot of days I spend these two hours doing my actual job’s work. But on days where I’ve somehow managed to get that work done before, I dig into my personal work. Writing these letters, making things for social media, taking pictures. I used to spend all day daydreaming about different ideas to the point I would get paralyzed by my own creativity. I thought it had to be perfect, or it wasn’t worth it. Nowadays you’ll find me writing a paragraph here, taking a photo there, filming a video while making breakfast. There is beauty in imperfection in that it’s given me the freedom to create and share without the pressure I put on myself before. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter if it turns out exactly how I envisioned it, it’s done, and that’s good enough for me. Onto the next.

It reminds me of when I was homeschooled. My sister and I used to get our schoolwork done in just a couple of hours each day. Then, we’d spend the rest of the day playing outside, or doing experiential learning like going to a museum, or diving deep into a topic we cared about. Meanwhile, our neighborhood friends would be gone all day, just getting off the bus at 3:30 pm and then having to go home to do homework before they could even come out to play. It baffled me that we could be on the same sort of track but that our time was spent so differently. I’m sure they learned a lot of valuable life skills that were different than what my sister and I learned, and I’m sure there are a ton of benefits to each way of learning or thinking. I’m definitely not creating a discussion about that. I was just always interested in the differences in how we could spend our day for the same essential outcome around doing school.

So, what really is time, anyway? It’s a construct that we either are put into by outside forces or kept boxed in by ourselves. I think so many of us don’t do the things we want to do in life, myself included, because we think that “we don’t have enough time.” Or, we spend all our time doing things that don’t really serve our purpose or push us forward. I am constantly amazed at the fact that I get more done now, with much less time, than I did before I became a mom. How wild is that? And I’m much more selective now than I’ve been before. I have to be. For me to spend my time doing that thing, it has to be at the top of my priority list or it just doesn’t happen.

And don’t get fooled, I love a good tv binge. I would probably get even more done if I didn’t spend my evenings cuddled up with my husband watching Blue Bloods. But, I’m not focused on revolving my life around to-do lists anyway. For me, it’s about spending intentional time doing what brings me joy and fulfillment. And that’s going to look different for everyone. It’s not about being a productive boss babe while my child naps, it’s just about realizing that what I thought mattered really took up all this space in my brain and therefore time in my day that meant nothing. And I’ve come to learn that as long as I’m actively creating something and putting it out into the world, that’s what matters most to me.

So I encourage you to think about this currency we have called time. How does it control your day-to-day life? How does the way you think about it affect what you really want to be doing? How can you get creative to get creative, and try timing things differently?

Some food for thought.

Oh, and now I hear a little toddler who’s up from her nap. Just in time.